A model of enhanced STM current due to semiconductor optical absorption Original Research Article

We present a simple model for the change in tunneling current between a semiconductor surface and a metal tip under spectroscopic illumination in a scanning tunneling microscope. This model predicts a sharp increase in the tunneling current due to the increase in the conduction band carrier density when the photon energy exceeds the optical band gap. The tunneling current for a large diffusion length has a more pronounced onset than for a small length. Our model should provide, when combined with experiments, a method of determining localized effective stoichiometry, and therefore provides a localized alternative to the use of optical absorption measurements. Our theoretical tunneling current versus photon energy curves are in good qualitative agreement with the existing experimentally measured curves for Si, GaAs, and InP obtained by Qian and Wessels. In addition, we have examined the effects of temperature, surface recombination velocity, and degeneracy on our theoretical results for the Hg1−xCdxTe, Hg1−xZnxTe, and Hg1−xZnxSe ternary narrow gap semiconductor systems.